abdicate

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

transitive v. To relinquish (power or responsibility) formally.

intransitive v. To relinquish formally a high office or responsibility.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

intransitive v. To relinquish or renounce a throne, or other high office or dignity.

transitive v. To surrender or relinquish, as sovereign power; to withdraw definitely from filling or exercising, as a high office, station, dignity.

transitive v. To renounce; to relinquish; -- said of authority, a trust, duty, right, etc.

transitive v. To reject; to cast off.

transitive v. To disclaim and expel from the family, as a father his child; to disown; to disinherit.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

To give up, renounce, abandon, lay down, or withdraw from, as a right or claim, office, duties, dignity, authority, and the like, especially in a voluntary, public, or formal manner.

To discard; cast away; take leave of: as, to abdicate one's mental faculties. In civil law, to disclaim and expel from a family, as a child; disinherit during lifetime: with a personal subject, as father, parent.

Examples

And, opinion polls have suggested, done by various television networks that over 55 percent still want her to stay on the throne and not to retire or even to abdicate, which is not in our constitution anyway.

I have never held such a high office --- nor do I aspire for it, nor have the talents to achieve it --- but I think that if I somehow was 'drafted' I would like to believe I'd follow the Mises line and "abdicate" or the Leonard Read line and "push the button".

There can be no doubt that nothing was further from the mind of James than to abdicate his throne-and, indeed, the Convention left open for everybody to interpret "abdicate" as a 'voluntary or an involuntary retirement from the throne as he wished.

The president of Ivory Coast has refused to "abdicate" in the wake of post election violence and said that any attempt to remove him will be met by force, his American representative has told The Daily Telegraph.